I did this recently, and discovered that I’m just plain burnt out in general with the whole industry. Between the egos, the never ending stream of self-inflicted wounds (tech debt), and the political jockeying I’ve just had it.

That aside, it is a tougher transition back to IC than I thought it would be. My new manager asks what I’d do, management wise, sometimes, but I don’t like being put in that position: there’s a reason I left management. Also, even though I wrote code frequently on my own time and contributed to designs, that’s not the same as being in the thick of it, and my skills deteriorated noticeably. That’s a hard thing to manage.